On Target and Off in 2002; . . . and In With the Underrated

Emily Eakin and Felicia R. Lee compiled the responses.

Published: December 28, 2002

In its inaugural appearance in 1997, Arts & Ideas asked a handful of academics to offer their suggestions for the most overrated idea. One respondent then proposed holding a contest for the most underrated idea, a suggestion that was promptly followed -- as the editors considered the notion neither overrated nor underrated but just right.

At that time, the nominations in both categories were rather cosmic in scope.

Eternal life and repression fell in the overrated column as, curiously enough, did modernism and postmodernism.

Hope, pacifism and kindness were all listed as underrated.

This time around, the editors narrowed the range somewhat and asked scholars and writers to propose the most overrated and the most underrated ideas of the past year.

The answers ranged from a baseball stadium in Manhattan to ''axis of evil.'' (Guess which of them is overrated and which underrated.)

Emily Eakin and Felicia R. Lee compiled the responses.

Christianity

The most underrated force in global affairs is Christianity. It is by far the world's largest religion, and it will continue to hold this position into the foreseeable future; but few of us notice how the character of that faith is being transformed. Over the past century, Christian numbers have been booming in the global south, in Africa, Asia and Latin America. For example, since 1900, the number of African Christians has grown spectacularly from around 10 million to over 360 million. Just within my baby-boomer lifetime, ''Western Christianity'' has become ever less significant as the faith's center of gravity has shifted.

And as Christianity has been, so to speak, going south, the religion has been adapting very rapidly to the cultures in which it operates. We see an upsurge of charismatic and supernatural-oriented forms of belief and practice. The emergence of southern Christianity constitutes a religious and cultural revolution quite comparable to the Reformation of the 16th century, though on a far vaster scale.

Philip Jenkins, professor of history and religious studies, Pennsylvania State University

Affluent Attitude

Somehow we crossed a rubicon this year when you began to hear teenage girls talking about getting spa treatments. Not too long ago, spas were for helmet-haired ladies who lunch, who went for getaway vacations to escape from all that charity ball stress. But now spas are for everybody, and a 16-year-old Abercrombie & Fitch girl who makes $7 an hour at the Cinnabon feels perfectly comfortable walking into a Japanese-minimalist spa and getting the full seaweed slather.

The market researchers at Yankelovich call this the Affluent Attitude. People with middle-class incomes now have the attitudes and expectations that were once reserved for the rich. If they buy a toaster, it had better be a Michael Graves designer toaster; if they go to the mall looking for a sweater, it had better be a Hilfiger or a Calvin Klein. And the sales staff had better be properly obsequious.

This isn't a triumph of higher incomes; it's a triumph of self-esteem. My favorite polling result of the 2000 election was a Time magazine survey that revealed that 19 percent of Americans believe that they have incomes in the top 1 percent, and a further 20 percent believe they will someday. A large majority of us regard ourselves as pretty far above average.

This may be why American consumers kept spending this year at an incredible pace, even as the economy slipped into the doldrums. In the flattering mirror of our imaginations, we see ourselves as high status, affluent people. So of course we are going to keep purchasing the finer things in life. And the beauty of it is that many of us will never have to face reality. We are born in the land of self-esteem, we travel the highways of exaggerated self-importance and we die in an atmosphere of smug self-satisfaction, happy with our lives and our things, leaving our descendants fond memories and large credit card bills.

David Brooks, a senior editor of The Weekly Standard, and the author of ''Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There''

Propaganda

It is difficult not to notice that Americans are on the receiving end of anger and resentment from around the world, not all of which is rational. We should use rational argument when we can, but we ignore at our peril that we are also a lightning rod for dark currents of hatred that flow through the psyche. The idea of propaganda is in bad repute because it is associated with crude cold-war caricatures. And clearly, advertising will be a disastrous approach to a Muslim fundamentalist culture that focuses its hatred on a culture of advertising. Like a psychoanalyst's handling of negative transference, we need to develop at the cultural level sophisticated ways of handling irrational hatred.

Jonathan Lear, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago

Moral Vocabulary

Evil is a dangerous word, if you fling it about irresponsibly. But it is an important word to keep in our moral vocabulary, because it sharpens our moral reactions and stiffens our moral resolve. The idea of ruthless malice, the love of death and destruction for its sake, constitutes a real category of human agency, and this is what the word evil is designed to connote.